BGU researchers have discovered that cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli may be able to break down biofilms that cause bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics.

So many types of bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics because the pathogens develop biofilms that protect them from being wiped that pharmaceutical companies have much less incentive to develop new antibiotics. A BGU research team successfully broke down the biofilms protecting the two different pathogens.

Antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens are increasingly playing a role in rising illness and are preventing wound healing, especially in hospitals. Further development and commercialization of the technology is currently being undertaken at the startup company LifeMatters, a privately held, pre-clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is developing new ways to fight resistant bacteria that often inhabit the lungs of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients and others.

Prof. Ariel Kushmaro, Dr. Karina Golberg, and others from BGU’s Avram and Stella Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering, collaborated with researchers from Near East University and Girne American University in Cyprus on this project. “By eliminating the P. aeruginosa bacterial biofilm, they make it possible for the innate immune system to eradicate the infection, improve the quality of life and prolong the life-span of CF patients, so that they can live fuller lives with a much-more-treatable infection. Our findings show promise for other avenues of research in addition to known classes of antibiotics,” concluded Prof. Kushmaro.